going to make a huge, heaping pile of money, then live happily ever after.
Or would he? Charley Pine mused on that question.
He would have cash or securities for the saucer, but whoever got the saucer would have the future in his hand. The saucer was a collection of seeds, many of which would probably grow and bear fruit. All manner of wondrous things would come from the saucer for whoever had it.
Ultimately the benefits from the saucer's technology would trickle down to everyone on the planet. Everyone would make money from it, have their lives improved, see new opportunities for their children.
Everyone except Roger Hedrick, that is. True, he would have money, lots of it. He was already worth forty to fifty billion dollars, and his fortune wasn't in cash. He owned things, like ships and factories, newspapers and television stations, computer companies and… oil companies. He owned a lot of oil, she recalled, tens of billions of dollars' worth.
Of course the cash he got for the saucer would have to be invested. Even Roger Hedrick couldn't keep all that money in his mattress; he was going to have to find someplace to put it to work.
He certainly wouldn't buy more oil. The investments in oil he already had would slowly decrease in value. Perhaps he could get out of oil before the price dropped precipitously. That must be his plan.
She gingerly put her feet up on the chair and hugged her legs. This stretched her back and gave her temporary relief. She arranged the blanket around her to keep warm.
Of course, if Hedrick were a real swine he would destroy the saucer after he was paid for it. Blow it to smithereens while it was on its way to wherever. Then he would have the purchase price, none of his existing investments around the world would be threatened by saucer technology, he would never have to defend his title in court, and no one could prove a thing. And if Charley Pine were flying the saucer, she would be neatly and tidily disposed of.
If Hedrick were a real swine…
She wondered if Roger Hedrick had thought that far ahead.
When the president finished lunch with the leaders of Congress, he went back to the Oval Office and turned on the television. Like half the people in America, he too was trying to keep up with the saucer story via television. In addition, he was trying to take the pulse of the voting public. He had four televisions arranged side by side so he could monitor the video on four networks at once and surf the audio channels.
Like Charley Pine in Australia, he also watched Professor Soldi. Being momentarily alone, he gave the archaeologist the finger.
The old fool didn't seem to realize how many applecarts he was threatening to upset with his visions of change, but the president certainly did. Successful politicians were those who knew which levers to pull, which buttons to push in today's world. Of course they paid lip service to change and spent their professional lives guiding it, but it was incremental change designed to benefit those people who had or would support them, usually people who were already at the top of the food chain. The president instinctively understood that the change Soldi envisioned was revolutionary, the kind that beheaded kings, executed czars, toppled republics. Soldi was the prophet of a new paradigm, and the president feared him.
He was listening to man-in-the-street interviews on CNN when his chief of staff, O'Reilly, came in.
'Roger Hedrick has four groups bidding on the saucer, Mr. President. China, Russia, and Japan arrived yesterday. A group from Europe arrived at Hedrick's station about ten hours ago. The senior negotiator is Nicholas Pieraut, a senior executive at Airbus. He telephoned the French government two hours ago and reported that he had had a saucer ride. He was very enthusiastic.'
'I thought State said the Europeans wouldn't bid on the saucer?'
'That's what their governments told our ambassadors.'
The president turned off the televisions with the buttons on his desk and leaned back in his chair.
'Were they lying, or did they change their minds?'
'They were lying.'
'And we can't tell them we know they were lying?'
'If we tell them… '
The president waved O'Reilly into silence. The National Security Agency was light-years ahead of the rest of the world in decoding encrypted electronic transmissions; it had been eavesdropping on foreign governments' conversations for years. Of course, to reveal knowledge gained in this manner would be to compromise the entire decoding operation.
'This mess keeps getting worse,' the president said. He put the palms of his hands over his eyes while he thought. After a bit he removed his hands and regarded O'Reilly with a morose stare. 'It will be bad if the Russians or Chinese get the thing, worse if Japan takes it home, but the Europeans would be a disaster. They have the capital and infrastructure to take immediate advantage of the technology.'
O'Reilly looked as wrung out as the president. 'I had lunch with the chairman of the Federal Reserve. He said that the saucer's technology could make Europe the world's dominant economy.'
'Any chance the Europeans might pay too much?' 'How much is too much? If you expect the technology in the saucer to grow your gross domestic product by five percent a year for the next ten years, how much could you pay Hedrick? Ten percent of that increase? Twenty? Thirty? True, the stimulus might be less than five percent of GDP, but I'll bet it'll be more. Perhaps a lot more.' 'And the Australian government?' 'They deny that the saucer is in the country.'
Rip Cantrell concentrated on staying on his side of the road as he piloted the delivery van out of Bathurst at ten o'clock in the morning and headed west for Hedrick's station. He was wearing the delivery driver's shirt and cap. He had left the man in a bar, determined to drink up the Australian equivalent of a thousand American dollars. Rip had solemnly promised to bring the van back that evening. The promise was a sop to the driver's conscience. He didn't even ask Rip why he wanted the van. The display of cash had been enough to seal the deal.
So here he was, wearing his new jacket against the morning chill, wearing a shirt that said 'Fred' above the left breast pocket and a cap with the market's name above the bill, driving this old van full of food.
He hummed as he drove, trying to keep his mind off his fluttering stomach. Maybe food would help. After all, two hours had passed since breakfast. Well, why not?
He pulled over and rummaged through the load until he found a box of doughnuts. With the box open beside him and a doughnut in his mouth, he got the van back on the road and rolling westward.
So far so good, he told himself. He was going into Hedrick's home camp… unarmed. With no plan. To find a woman and steal a saucer.
Chance of success? Damn near zero. But what else could he do?
He didn't have a gun, wouldn't shoot anyone if he had one, didn't know if Charley was there, didn't know if the saucer was still there — though it probably was since he had seen it airborne yesterday — didn't know how many guys Hedrick had around him.
He ate another doughnut.
All too soon he came to the long straight stretch. The gate was three or four miles down there on the left. He slowed down, flexed his hands and arms, sped back up.
Well, all he could do was his best. Pray for a little luck.
He brushed the crumbs off his lap and set the cap on his head just the way he liked it, then began slowing for the turn.
Three guys in the guard shack by the gate pole, which was down. He pulled up at the shack and stopped.
One of them came out, looked him over. 'Have I seen you before, mate?' he asked.
Rip just shook his head no.
'New man, eh?'
Rip nodded, then said, 'Uh-huh.'
'Righto. In you go.' The guard pushed down on the weight on the butt end of the gate pole, and the pole rose.
